


Tear Free

by The_Onion_Wanton



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Found Family, Post-The Suffering Game, Team as Family, merle does his hair and they have a chat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Onion_Wanton/pseuds/The_Onion_Wanton
Summary: Taako's not used to having to comb his hair, even less so to missing his sister.





	Tear Free

It takes three days to adjust to a change, or so Merle heard. Something about, if you got a pair of glasses that flipped your view upside down, three days later the world would seem upside down without them, but — he can’t say he’d ever paid attention— what a dumb idea, he can see people making those but sure at can’t using them for three days —

A day and his vision will stop being so god damn _wonky_ , is what the point was.

He keeps forgetting he lost his dark vision. Got up to piss mid-night three times already and walked headfirst into a wall. Many a stubbed a toe but, hell, those were never a rarity. Magnus’ battleaxe seems to be taunting him. 

It’s two days after the return from Wonderland and Merle is half-way through his morning coffee— Magnus must’ve made this batch because it’s way too fucking thick and a little burned but not like he’s about to complain — when he realizes he slept nowhere near well enough to ignore the angry muttering and irregular clunks coming from the joint bathroom. He knocks the caffeine sludge back, belches, and gets up — Taako’s february-cat soprano guides him down the corridor, doors to the left.

He knocks. The other side grows silent.

“Taako,” he sighs. Rubs his nose.

A beat. “Ye _es_?”

He sounds like he’s trying really hard to sound nonchalant. “What’s the goddamn issue, son?”

A sputtering. “There’s not a problem, my man, just a fella doing his fella duties—”

“Not one to ask what you’ve got between your legs, boy, because I’m not the sort to care, but—” A wheeze of laughter from the bathroom, which he ignores. “If that’s the sound it makes, you might need medical assistance.”

The doors open, nearly surprising him. Taako is there, looking oddly frazzled— Merle realizes, belatedly, that the spell he’d cast on his appearance isn’t active — a brush stuck in his long mess of hair.

“Well, tough luck for me, I guess,” he says. He’s looking anywhere but in Merle’s direction. “Because it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a decent healing.”

Merle punches him in the knee. “I gave up so many hit-points, you idiot.”

Taako stumbles a bit — it’s a bitter reminder, Merle hates the fucking liches — recovers quickly. 

The comb is still in his hair.

Merle gestures towards it. “You need help with that?”

Taako mutters something, looks away.

Merle watches him. “That a Yes or a No?”

Despite the colour of his skin, Merle can tell Taako is blushing. He finally nods.

Merle sighs. _Kids._ “Well, let me in, then, princess.”

“Damn right, I am,” Taako murmurs behind him; lets him in all the same, follows him around looking oddly lost (both the in the worldly and the geographical sense).

Merle pulls up the small wooden ladder Magnus had carved up long before he was wood himself, gestures for Taako to get before it; if he positions it so that it’s not facing the mirror, well, that’s just a lucky coincidence, he guesses.

Taako does as he is told. The eye-roll is barely noticeablel.

Merle is concerned.

“So.” Taako’s hair feels a little dry to the touch; it’s tangled to all hell, too, and Merle resigns himself to spending a good amount of time carefully undoing the knots because Taako is Taako and has been through enough already and he doesn’t want to deal with having to tell him he needs a haircut, not now. “What happened here?”

Taako blows some air through his nose. “The comb got.” He gestures wildly.

Merle chuckles. “Stuck?”

“Yeah!” Taako slouches, ever so slightly— Merle gives his hair a little tug, makes him fix his posture. “Fucking. Piece of shit.”

Merle hums.

Taako is silent for a whole. “It’s so — “

“Stuck?”

A groan. “My hair got, like, super tangled up and—”

“Yes,” Merle hums. He’s making progress. “Hair is wont to do that.”

Taako’s reply is so silent, he almost misses it. “Didn’t use to.”

Merle doesn’t know how to reply.

_Fuck you_ He wants to say. _I lost an eye, you brat, Magnus was_ a puppet—

He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t really mean it.

Taako is staring down at his hands, fiddling with the many rings.

Merle undo-es a particularly nasty knot. Taako yelps.

“Now, now,” Merle pats his back. “You’ve had worse.” A beat. “I’ve seen it.”

Taako gives a weak laugh.

They’re making progress. Taako just has _so much hair_.

“Ever heard of conditioner, kid?” Merle asks, half-way done. His hands are getting sore.

Taako hums. “Heard of it.”

_Screw his good genetics,_ Merle thinks and then, remembers, yes, someone did. 

“We’ll get you some,” he says instead. “Some fantasy platinum blonde deep repair shit. You bleach it?”

Taako hums. 

“Shit,” Merle laughs. “How long does it take you?”

“It was shorter when I first did it,” Taako’s voice is coming out strained. Merle decides not to pry because, vain as Taako is, this is obviously no longer about just hair. “Now it just needs touch-ups.”

“Huh.”

“‘Twas her idea.”

It takes him no time at all to realize who _her_ is. “Yeah.”

Lup’s hair was shorter, barely reaching her shoulders; she didn’t have Taako’s signature dark roots, though, different aesthetic choices, he’d assumed. One side was shaved off; she’d do it herself, during the years the IPRE spent together, using Barry’s razors and the closest reflective surface—

_Merle would fix it for her later, because the girl’s hand was as steady as—_

Taako seems to be on the same train of thought. “She said she shaved her head so that people could tell us apart.”

Merle says nothing. Taako’s hair is officially knot-free; Merle is braiding it now, because, fuck it.

“It was obviously a lie, she’d be eyeing them girls with undercuts since we could walk.” Taako’s laugh comes out sounding wet. 

Merle’s chest is awfully tight.

“She’d have to find a better excuse now,” Taako rasps. His fingers are wrung together. “Unfair she gets to be both the Punk and the Pretty twin.”

Merle decides to ignore the comment, mostly because he has no idea how to address it. Doesn’t miss the present tense, though. _Me too, kid._ “She could always just tell the truth, too.”

Another wet chuckle. “Good luck getting her to do _that_.”

“Naw, naw, I got better with my magics,” Merle is giving Taako a traditional dwarven braid, and the boy better appreciate. “I’d Zone Of Truth the fuck out of her.”

Taako laughs again.

“Also, your hair is longer,” Merle tugs at it. “And you sit like your back is broken.”

Another laugh — they keep getting more genuine.

“There,” Merle steps off the ladder. “All fixed up.”

Taako examines his hair in the mirror; his face is unreadable. “Huh.”

“That better not be a bad huh.”

A smirk; a sign of the old Taako. “Alright.”

Merle elbows his leg, walks back out of the bathroom. “After my coffee got cold for you, smartass.”

“Yeah, gonna call bullshit on that.” Taako follows him into the kitchen; when Merle looks back at him, his face is back to the old Taako. _Figures._ “I can see the dregs in your beard, you gross old man.”

“That’s a gross old man who just saved your hair, sweetheart!”

Taako bats his eyelashes at him, struts over to the kitchen. “Eggs sound okay?”

Merle blinks. 

Taako glances over his shoulder. “One time opportunity, yo.”

“Right,” Merle grunts. “They sound digestible.”

Taako rolls his eyes, but there’s no malice. 

“You remember how I like them,” Merle adds, in a smaller voice.

Taako still catches it. Damn elven earing. “Yeah, I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! come say hi @the-onion-slut (tumblr) or @OnionProstitute (twitter) if u wanna
> 
> (wrote this at 4am bc meds wouldn't let me sleep merle come braid my hair)


End file.
